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Dog-bitten child gets rabies shot

ATLANTA — A Smyrna mother is frantically searching for a dog that bit her son as he gets ready to have a second round of painful rabies shots.

Carter Dexter is quick to smile, even with the gash on his wrist.

Carter and his parents were on the patio at Steamhouse Lounge in midtown on Sunday afternoon, when he says, "I was going to see the fish and I walked and I tripped over the leash and the dog came (and) attacked me."

"The dog then pounced on him and bit him," waitress Toni Smith said.

Smith said during the chaos, as Carter's parents rushed him to the hospital, the dog's owner slipped out with the dog.

"She was on the phone, stating that Max, which was the dog's name, had bit a kid and she didn't know what to do. By the time I turned back around she was gone," Smith said.

Smith said the dog was a black and white Boston terrier. She said the owner was a young woman in her early 20s, who was with another woman and man.

"They paid with cash so we have no way to track them down," Sam Weyman with the Steamhouse Lounge said.

The restaurant staff said the group had given their names, but they have not been able to track any of the people down.

Meanwhile, the Dexters can't confirm the dog's rabies vaccination. Now Carter has to have a series of painful shots. The first was Wednesday.

"Not fun. The first round of shots was three lady nurses holding Carter, all tag-teaming him, giving him shots in the arms, (the) other nurse giving shot right in the wound. Five shots in (the) actual wound itself," Debbie Dexter, Carter's mother, said.

The Dexters say they just want the dog's records to put an end to the shots.

"It's very hard seeing your son in all that pain, and all this could've been stopped. That is what my husband and I have hardest time with," Dexter said.

The waitress said the dog and the dog owner have come to the restaurant before. The family is hoping someone will come forward.

Anyone with information about the dog is asked to call Fulton County Animal Control at 404-613-0358.
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